A/N: I'm sure that, by now, you all can tell that I like to be mean to Hatter when Alice isn't there. It just makes for such a great story! At least, I think it does. Not sure about you guys...Anyway, this story is a result of watching the new Alice In Wonderland movie for like the eight time and realizing that there weren't any stories like this out on the internet. I also want to state, before I get any wierd reviews, that the only romance between characters in this story is AlicexHatter. That's it.
Chessur wasn't really sure what he was doing here, sitting in the chair directly across the table from Tarrant, no one else in sight. It wasn't that unusal really, to see Tarrant at the Tea-Table by himself, at least not anymore. Not since his eyes were almost always a color that wasn't quite orange and wasn't quite purple but cetaintly wasn't entirely not green. Even Mallymkun had taken to staying away, 'busy' she would say, but the Cheshire Cat knew the real reasons.
Not that that did anything. It didn't explain to him why he was sitting here, watching Tarrant pour tea into a broken tea-cup and mutter something that probably didn't even make sense to him.
Nor did it explain why he had been doing this for the last how-ever many days. He would come sometime in the morning, or when-ever he got up, and come to this almost abandoned tea-party. Because that is most certaintly what it was, almost abandoned but not quite empty.
His eyes right now were almost normal, a purply-orangy-green-but-not-green color, the calmest they had been in quite some time -Chessur wans't positive of the Time for it had stopped itself around Hatter and thus, when he visited, around himself- and he seemed to be thinking about something.
Perhaps the reason was that Tarrant had never left anyone when they had a rough patch, and everyone in Underland had been through one at some point or another, but that wasn't quite it. No, Chessur found that it had more to do with the fact that Tarrant had been his first real friend, and he Tarrant's, and he couldn't just leave him to be alone in his madness. Not when he needed someone to bring him out of it on his worse days.
"Have you been considering more words Tarrence?" It was their common exchange -their only exchange when he was mad like he was now because it was one of the only things that his mind could make sence of- and as he had been everyday since the madness kicked in, Chessur was forced to listen to a list a mile long. And just like everyday, Chessur speaking was what brought Tarrant back out of his madness. If only for a few moments.